COLLIDE. // Bakudeku

You.

BOY, OH BOY,

Trust takes a lot

My thoughts eat at themselves

My throat is in a knot

I can't ignore the echoes of my past

But I can learn to rewrite

You are the pen with golden ink,

You are my glow in the night

Promise not to leave me,

Or I might leave myself

Root me in your heaven,

Lest I fall to hell.

"I used to puke a lot back then."

The subtle whirring of the ceiling fan was the only sound that filled the silence in the office. Whenever Katsuki had a therapy session for the week, Nemuri oftentimes fell into a cycle with him where he wouldn't speak for minutes on end, only to randomly blurt something without any prompting.

Nemuri hummed. "Why is that?"

Katsuki sighed. "Well, the night it happened...I passed out. When I woke up in my dorm room, I puked. It made me feel cleaner or some shit, I don't know. I'd see her face every day, so I vomited as often as I could. Seeing her made me feel so fucking weird that it was the only thing I could think about doing to feel better."

"Would you say it was a cleansing of sorts for you?"

Katsuki shrugged. "I guess."

"Well, did the vomiting come with nausea? Did you naturally have the urge to vomit every time?"

"I can't label that shit in my head. Just felt the need to do something with myself. I'd get the job done myself; I stuck my fingers to the back of my throat every other night before bed."

"Did you continue that habit after going back home?"

"Nah, that shit got old fast. It was so fucking stupid. I just get high and shit instead. It's easier."

"Are there any drawbacks to that, though?" Nemuri asked.

Bakugou immediately thought of a lot of drawbacks. He was exhausted. He was irritable. He was even jumpy sometimes. He didn't reply, though.

Nemuri noticed. "Sometimes, our methods for healing can be unhealthy, or toxic. But the fact that we even considered methods are proof of our resilience, in a way. It's easy to give up. It's easy to give in to something that might feel like it swallows you whole." She refolded her legs. "Methods and coping mechanisms are amazing, once they're on the right path. There's no race for healing, Katsuki. If there are methods that you use now that are self-destructive, then connect the dots. Find out why the methods you're using feel so draining and inefficient. Mold your habits. It takes time, but you can find a way to not feel suffocated."

Katsuki leaned back into his seat, sighing with slight irritation. It was hard to be told that his habits, ones that'd stuck with him for years, were supposed to be molded. He knew that they were unhealthy obviously, but his pain swallowed his logic. That always seemed to be the case.

Nonetheless, Katsuki sighed deeply, rubbing his temple. He really wanted to go back to his dorm or spend some time with Izuku, but he'd told himself that his comfort needed to be sacrificed for any of this to work.

He shrugged. "What do I replace my unhealthy habits with, then?"

Meanwhile, back at Kaminari's dorm, Izuku inhaled the heavy waft of smoke that surrounded them both, along with Kirishima.